Part 51 (1/2)

I am frank with you about how glad I am to have you here. You must be good to me; you will prize my love a little, won't you?” Before he could answer she had run away.

After half home-comings and false home-comings the adventurer had really come home.

He inspected the gracious room, its chintz hangings, four-poster bed, low wicker chair by the fireplace, fresh Cherokee roses on the mantel; a room of cheerfulness and open s.p.a.ces. He stared into woods where a cool light lay on moss and fern. He did not need to remember Ruth's kisses. For each breath of hilltop air, each emerald of moss, each s.h.i.+ning mahogany surface in the room, repeated to him that he had found the Grail, whose other name is love.

Sat.u.r.day, they loafed over breakfast, the sun licking the tree-tops in the ravine outside the windows; and they motored with the Kerrs to Lenox, returning through the darkness. Till midnight they talked on the terrace. They loafed again, the next morning, and let the fresh air dissolve the office grime which had been coating his spirit. They were so startlingly original as to be simple-hearted country lovers, in the afternoon, declining Kerr's offer of a car, and rambling off on bicycles.

From a rise they saw water gleaming among the trees. The sullen green of pines set off the silvery green of barley, and an orchard climbed the next rise; the smoky shadow of another hill range promised long, cool forest roads. Crows were flying overhead, going where they would.

The aviator and the girl who read psychology, modern lovers, stood hand in hand, as though the age of machinery were a myth; as though he were a piping minstrel and she a shepherdess. Before them was the open road and all around them the hum of bees.

A close, listless heat held Monday afternoon, even on the hilltop. The clay tennis-court was baking; the worn bricks of the terrace reflected a furnace glow. The Kerrs had disappeared for a nap. Carl, lounging with Ruth on the swinging couch in the shade, thought of the slaves in New York offices and tenements. Then, because he would himself be back in an office next day, he let the glare of the valley soothe him with its wholesome heat.

”Certainly would like a swim,” he remarked. ”Couldn't we bike down to Fisher's Pond, or maybe take the Ford?”

”Let's. But there's no bath-house.”

”Put a bathing-suit under your dress. Sun 'll dry it in no time, after the swim.”

”As you command, my liege.” And she ran in to change.

They motored down to Fisher's Pond, which is a lake, and stopped in a natural woodland-opening like a dim-lighted greenroom. From it stretched the enameled lake, the farther side reflecting unbroken woods. The nearer water-edge was exquisite in its clearness. They saw perch fantastically floating over the pale sand bottom, among scattered reeds whose watery green stalks were like the thin columns of a dancing-hall for small fishes. The surface of the lake, satiny as the palm of a girl's hand, broke in the tiniest of ripples against white quartz pebbles on the hot sh.o.r.e. Cool, flas.h.i.+ng, golden-sanded, the lake coaxed them out of their forest room.

”A lot like the Minnesota lakes, only smaller,” said Carl. ”I'm going right in. About ready for a swim? Come on.”

”I'm af-fraid!” She suddenly plumped on the earth and hugged her skirts about her ankles.

”Why, blessed, what you scared of? No sharks here, and no undertow.

Nice white sand----”

”Oh, Hawk, I was silly. I felt I was such an independent modern woman a-a-and I aren't! I've always said it was silly for girls to swim in a woman's bathing-suit. Skirts are so c.u.mbersome. So I put on a boy's bathing-suit under my dress--and--I'm terribly embarra.s.sed.”

”Why, blessed----Well, I guess you'll have to decide.” His voice was somewhat shaky. ”Awful scared of Carl?”

”Yes! I thought I wouldn't be, with you, but I'm self-conscious as can be.”

”Well, gee! I don't know. Of course----Well, I'll jump in, and you can decide.”

He peeled off his white flannels and stood in his blue bathing-suit, not statue-like, not very brown now, but trim-waisted, shapely armed, wonderfully clean of neck and jaw. With a ”Wheee!” he dashed into the water and swam out, overhand.

As he turned over and glanced back, his heart caught to see her standing on the creamy sand, a shy, elfin figure in a boy's bathing-suit of black wool, woman and slim boy in one, silken-throated and graceful-limbed, curiously smaller than when dressed. Her white skirt and blouse lay tumbled about her ankles. She raised rosy arms to hide her flushed face and her eyes, as she cried:

”Don't look!”

He obediently swam on, with a tenderness more poignant than longing.

He heard her splas.h.i.+ng behind him, and turned again, to see her racing through the water. Those soft yet not narrow shoulders rose and fell st.u.r.dily under the wet black wool, her eyes shone, and she was all comradely boy save for her dripping, splendid hair. Singing, ”Come on, lazy!” she headed across the pond. He swam beside her, reveling in the well-being of cool water and warm air, till they reached the solemn shade beneath the trees on the other side, and floated in the dark, still water, splas.h.i.+ng idle hands, gazing into forest hollows, spying upon the brisk business of squirrels among the acorns.

Back at their greenwood room, Ruth wrapped her sailor blouse about her, and they squatted like un-self-conscious children on the beach, while from a field a distant locust fiddled his August fandango and in flame-colored pride an oriole went by. Fresh sky, sunfish like tropic sh.e.l.ls in the translucent water, arching reeds dipping their olive-green points in the water, wavelets rustling against a gray neglected rowboat, and beside him Ruth.